When judges start inventing law

This goofy ruling is why the 9th Circuit gets reversed more than any other federal appellate court. If entering the country illegally is a crime - and it is (for the slower members of the 9th, the words "illegal entry" are a hint) - then encouraging illegal entry is considered solicitation of a criminal offense. Solicitation of a criminal offense is itself a crime - unless, apparently, you are an agenda-crazed judge in the 9th Circuit. And that does not criminalize otherwise innocuous speech - you can induce, solicit, encourage to your heart's content just about any behavior that is not criminal. As a lawyer, I am not unaccustomed to breathtakingly stupid judicial behavior, but it really pi$$es me off when judges start inventing law for the sole purpose of subverting sensible laws and encouraging lawless behavior.

If you look at the percentages racked up between 2001 and 2017, the Ninth has a reversal/overturn rate of a cool 80 percent. Another metric is the fact that the Supremes grant certiorari on more than twice as many Ninth Circuit cases each year than in almost any other circuit - which makes sense, because the Ninth disposes of more cases than any other circuit. When I took legal research and writing in 1993, the professor, who was not trying to be funny, said that we were to use the Ninth decisions as persuasive authority only if we were unable to find any other Supreme Court or circuit court cases that were on point. The Ninth is a squirrel cage, especially when there is an overrepresentation of judges from California, and fewer from Oregon and Washington - although those states are pretty weird too, anymore.

We have enough people who are distrustful of the justice system and this kind of crap makes it hard to argue that they shouldn't feel that way.

Comments

No, the ninth is not the most overturned. As a researcher, you should have been able to easily find this out. It's third.
https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2017/feb/10/sean-hannity/no-9th-circuit-isnt-most-overturned-court-country-/

Garbage in; garbage out.
The 9th is not the most reversed court. That is another of Trump's lies being promoted by his ignorant and gullible followers.

"From 1999 to 2008, of the 0.151% of Ninth Circuit Court rulings that were reviewed by the Supreme Court, 20% were affirmed, 19% were vacated, and 61% were reversed; the median reversal rate for all federal appellate courts was 68.29% for the same period." Wikipedia
When the court became solidified as a conservative bulwark, the 9th circuit was overruled more often but by no means the most: "
the Supreme Court reversed about 70 percent of cases it took between 2010-15. Among cases it reviewed from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, it reversed about 79 percent.
The 9th Circuit’s reversal rate is higher than average, but it’s not the absolute highest among the circuit courts. That distinction goes to the 6th Circuit, which serves Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee, with an 87 percent average between 2010-15. The 9th Circuit is in third place." politifact.com

If you wish to preserve the integrity of the content of writerbeat, you will beat a hasty retreat and admit that you were wrong and foolishly believed the Trump and his stooge Hannity, who promoted this lie.

You can see how leftists are brainwashed by the above two commenters running right to Google to get brainwashed. Politifact is totally left wing, but to the left, it's not biased at all. They don't realize the numbers are skewed for an agenda that will destroy America long term. This is because the left doesn't know or understand history very well.

You can use any search engine you want to find the court rulings, which show that the 9th Circuit is NOT the most reversed. Facts are not left or right wing.....the claim that they are is part of the crusade against knowledge used by fascists to defeat the well-informed.

Your kill the messenger fallacy reveal a deep dishonesty on the part of the right when it comes to accepting facts. You are busted.

For judges invent laws, the prize goes to the
"strict constructionists" who have ruled that
corporations (legal constructs chartered by the states) are people with the rights of individual

money is free speech (meaning the wealthy have the most free speech and the poor have none)

The 2nd Amendment grants the right to hunt and individual protection, concepts entirely absent from the 2nd Amendment, which declares that the right to keep and bear arms (under the control of Congress--Article 1, Section 8) is based on the need of a pool of armed men to be called forth to defend the country or put down insurrections by Congress...or the need for collective defense, without a word or hint of individual self-defense, hunting, etc.....just collective defense of the country.

Such inventions of law by the strict constructions is based not on the text or intent of the law but on the need to provide legal cover for the use of Big Money to buy elections and dominate the political process and the right to strike down gun laws based on the noted invented reasons for the 2nd Amendment.

We recall how the court once ruled that slaves have no rights, as they are property, and so the rights belong to their owners. In this case, this was a ruling consistent with the original intent of the slave owners who wrote the Constitution.

That is a rather absurd argument, since the left outspent Trump 2:1, and still got beat, and they again outspent conservatives 2:1 in the midterms and still lost the Senate.

The problem isn't money. It's the near lack of comprehension of history, morals, and the Constitution of the average American. If we all understood these, all the money in the world wouldn't sway and deceive us. To have critical thinking you have to have an existing knowledge base, and when 90% of Democrat voters can't name the 3 branches of government, 9 SCOTUS justices, and haven't read 5 of the 204 Founders biographies, critical thinking is nearly impossible for a Democrat voter.

The 2nd Amendment was for hunting? Really? Remember when Paul Revere was riding to try and protect the guns for deer hunting? Yeah, me neither. Remember the freedom and liberty that ensued when Mao, Hitler, and Pol Pot disarmed the people? Again, me neither.

Blacks owning guns is what protected them from the Klan, so fail on the racism argument. The majority of the Founders did not have slaves, so please learn your history.

Trump, who claimed he could be trusted because he was self-funding and thus beholden to no one, paid for 10% of his campaign costs. By his own logic, why would you trust him.
And you are factually wrong on 2 counts:
1. Clinton beat Trump in the actual election by 2.9 million votes.
2. Trump's free media (a study found that he not only got more attention but Clinton got more negative press) was worth billions.

Opensecrets reports: "President target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump‘s campaign cost almost $398 million, which was considerably lower than candidate target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hillary Clinton‘s total of more than $768 million. But Trump was Trump, and thus a constant focus of media attention. According to mediaQuant, Inc., from July 2015 through October 2016 Trump received free media worth more than $5.9 billion. Clinton received less than half that figure, a little under $2.8 billion."

For the overall election funding, it was tied, "Democrats and Republicans roughly split the costs of the election, with each picking up 47.7 percent of the tab;the remaining 4.6 percent came from independent groups or spending that lacks party codes in our data "

And keep in mind that while Republicans took control of the House, they lost the popular vote by 8 million, as in the recent Senate elections, where they picked up 2 seats, they were outvoted by 12 million.

Dale Ruff: Trump, who claimed he could be trusted because he was self-funding and thus beholden to no one, paid for 10% of his campaign costs.

Good. Hillary and Bill haven't ever really done honest work in their life. They are a bunch of parasites, making money off selling government favors.

By his own logic, why would you trust him.

Because he's far better than every last Democrat, to anyone who knows the spirit and letter of the Constitution. How old are you? You sound like you are under 35. God help us if you are over 35 and still don't know this stuff. And don't go running to google to post disinformation on the Founders. Go to the library and go read. And you are factually wrong on 2 counts:1. Clinton beat Trump in the actual election by 2.9 million votes.
Illegal voting was rampant, and without NY and California, she lost the popular vote. NY and California are full of voter fraud and full of voters just like you, ahistorical and full of liberal dogma. 2. Trump's free media (a study found that he not only got more attention but Clinton got more negative press) was worth billions.
Not his fault. Hellivision is a curse on America. Fitting that the curse actually helped elect a sensible President superior to every Democrat.Opensecrets reports: "President target="_blank">target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump‘s campaign cost almost $398 million, which was considerably lower than candidate target="_blank">target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hillary Clinton‘s total of more than $768 million. But Trump was Trump, and thus a constant focus of media attention. According to mediaQuant, Inc., from July 2015 through October 2016 Trump received free media worth more than $5.9 billion. Clinton received less than half that figure, a little under $2.8 billion."

We are talking about candidates money spent. I can run for office and I'll get tons of free media, because the hysterical media will go crazy over nearly everything I say. They try their best to label people like me nutcases, so people like you will ignore us and stay deluded. It's apparently working on you and the other liberals on WB. For the overall election funding, it was tied, "Democrats and Republicans roughly split the costs of the election, with each picking up 47.7 percent of the tab; the remaining 4.6 percent came from independent groups or spending that lacks party codes in our data "And keep in mind that while Republicans took control of the House, they lost the popular vote by 8 million, as in the recent Senate elections, where they picked up 2 seats, they were outvoted by 12 million.

Matters not at all. The Founders abhorred the popular vote, as they realized there would be ahistorical ignoramuses easily swayed by demagogues.

It just doesn't seem fair. My first day here, and I am taking massively witless and uninformed flak from Troll Hunter and Dale Ruff, AKA Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber.

One of them lacks basic reading comprehension skills, or perhaps, being a typical leftist, with a massively ignorant and unfounded belief in his own intellectual and moral superiority. The other is a weirdly unappealing cocktail of childish arrogance and oblivious ignorance. He tries to convince us that he is about 40 IQ points beyond his actual score - he's pretending to be at least as smart as, say, a toy poodle formed by 20 generations of disastrous inbreeding, with regressive genetic characteristics that are popping out like acne on an adolescent. He does this by employing bizarre English constructions wherein he claims to be imparting knowledge "upon" someone, and "bequeathing" helpful information. Of course, English may not be his first language, in which case I apologize.

Dale, I admit that I should have used the word "overturned," in referring to the Ninth's pitiful record at the Supreme Court. Even though a it has no real legal meaning, everyone generally knows that it means that a lower court decision was not favored on appeal.

But when you stated that in the 10 years from 1999 and 2008, 61 percent of the Ninth's cases that went to the Supreme Court were reversed. You are correct. You also said that 19 percent of the Ninth's decisions were vacated, as if that is somehow better than reversal. Since you clearly don't know what it means and could not be bothered to look it up, I think that I can clear it up for you.

When a case is reversed, it is often sent back to a lower court with instructions to fix some judicial error. It can be affirmed in part and reversed in part; it can be remanded with instructions; it can be reversed entirely, etc.,

When it is "vacated," however, it means that the reviewing court found the entire decision to be so bad, so out of touch with the actual law, its legal reasoning so specious that it shows an utter lack of comprehension of how it should have been handled. It is the equivalent of launching an MX missile to nuke it out of existence. It is as if the justices who are in the majority are rolling around on the floor, laughing and pointing, both at the dorks who produced the ruling, and at the hapless clowns who had the unenviable task of presenting it to the Supreme Court.

When the late Justice Scalia was alive and writing the opinion for the majority, he would write things like "One can only marvel at the inability or unwillingness by the court below to employ basic legal reasoning and apply long-established principles of law to the resolution of this case." his favorite punching bag was the Ninth - whether the entire court sat en banc, or in one of their Larry-Moe-and-Curly triumvirates.

Am I getting the point across to you, Dale, that vacating is worse than reversal? Like I said, I should have used a less-precise word like overturned. But I said 80 percent, and 19 percent (vacated) + 61 percent (reversed) equals - wait for it - 80 percent. Maybe you already figured that out, but I did not want to assume that your basic arithmetic skills were any better than your reading comprehension.

The Ninth has a similar dismal track record since 2008. Certainly there have been outlier years when some other court took home the trophy for the year's dumbest rulings. There have been years when the Ninth's decisions were affirmed slightly more than 20 percent of the time (there also have been years when they would have prayed for a 20 percent affirmation rate)

So what? That's like saying that the Yankees don't have the best World Series record in baseball because they have not won every year. True enough, but since the series inception in 1908, the Yankees have taken home the trophy an astonishing 29 times - one in four series ever played, more or less.

In other words, the Ninth has on the average done more poorly at the Supreme Court than the Yankees in the world series.

Your screed about strict constructionist judges and their Second Amendment rulings are further evidence, if any were needed, that you don't know anything about the Constitution or the men who wrote it. You are just an ideologue, agenda-driven windbag.

You clearly haven't read the Federalist Papers to see what James Madison thought about arms in private hands. You clearly have read nothing about Jefferson's philosophy, but do you really think that the man who talked about the periodic necessity of nourishing the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants would have also supported having all of the nation's weapons under government control? He understood that only an armed citizenry could guarantee the abil

He understood that only an armed citizenry could guarantee the ability to hold an abusive government to account.And do you really think that the three words "well-regulated militia" meant that the only purpose for free men to be armed was so that they could fight for the government, to be, in effect, permanent potential conscripts? Do you really believe that "shall not be infringed" meant that government was not allowed to take weapons away from itself? Most communities that needed a militia were very small and relatively isolated in the early 1800s. If the intent was to allow citizens to use guns only on behalf of the government, it would have been easy enough to store them in a location easily accessible from anywhere in town. But that was not the intent - ever.But you don't have to take my word for it. You can do some research and see for yourself why the Second Amendment was drafted and ratified. Of course, your ideological soul mates have decreed that it doesn't matter what the Framers meant, because they were white guys who were racist, sexist, misogynistic homophobes who probably would not have believed that a man can become a woman by snipping off his junk with a set of garden shears. Courts have consistently held that when the government punishes the exercise of a right, or takes steps to make its exercise excessively burdensome, then that right effectively ceases to exist. The constructionist judges that you were screaming about have sometimes - not nearly often enough, IMO - interfered with governmental efforts to legislate from the bench and render our basic rights meaningless. Good for them - that's their job.Troll Humper, there's no point in wasting time on you after all. Besides, everything I said to Dale about the assessment of the Ninth's track record applies to your purported facts as well.I know that you would feel compelled to make some silly response to anything I said, so I will spare you that. The way I see it, I am doing you a favor by allowing you to save the breath that you will probably need to inflate your girlfriend tonight.

Mogg Tsur, I can't disagree with anything you said. And you're right about the DC Circuit's unofficial status of being first among equals. That's why judges appointed to that court are often assumed to be potential Supreme Court nominees down the road.

To be fair, a high reversal rate is not necessarily a sign that a Court isn't doing its job. Most reversals also include remanding a case back to a lower court to fix some things that the lower court goofed on (or, in Supreme Courtspeak, "...for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion" Bleh).

Remember, the Supremes only take about 60 - 80 cases a year. The Court is most likely to take on a case when there is such a split of opinion among several circuits, involving seriously important points of law, that the Supreme Court decides that it needs to step in as an umpire. They also take cases when the lower courts have so badly bungled their application of the law that it will do serious harm that will be repeated in the future (that happens a lot in the Ninth, because like most leftists, they believe in a "living Constitution," that means whatever a bunch of black-robed political hacks with lifetime tenure want it to mean.

The thing that makes the Ninth's Supreme Court cases so egregious is not just the overturn percentage. It's the fact that many of the cases involve points of law that have been regarded as thoroughly settled since Christ was a corporal - like the idiot ruling that soliciting criminal behavior is no longer a crime. And they give no rationale for completely turning existing law on its head. They simply announce that its unconstitutional based on First Amendment issues that somehow escaped discovery for the past 200 years. It has always been a crime to use speech to induce criminal conduct, and in fact solicitation of a crime is one of the areas that is often included when courts give examples showing that the First Amendment rights are not unlimited, and that the government can sometimes regulate the "time, place, and manner" of our freedom of expression.

The Ninth always seems to be out of step with some concepts that other circuits view as well-established law, and that is why so many of their decisions receive fairly rough handling on appeal.

The article started with a rightist lie and went downhill from there. Of course, Lyin Ryan backs the lie and hopes he'll snag a newbee idiot like "Tanstaffl" revealed himself to be. WB rightists simply love lies, so dispense some more, rightist pig. I don't know what rock you crawled out from under, but go back. Crap article, newbee.

Do you have any specific criticisms of the article that you can support with evidence? Do you have any examples of lies that I told, and do you have any evidence that I was not only wrong, but deliberately lying? Do you typically lapse into childish tantrums when confronted with facts that challenge your uninformed preconceptions? Do you really believe that anyone is going to take you seriously when your default response is to become hysterical and lash out with meaningless insults to spare yourself the painful task of trying to think of a reasoned argument?

David L wrote, "He understood that only an armed citizenry could guarantee the ability to hold an abusive government to account.And do you really think that the three words "well-regulated militia" meant that the only purpose for free men to be armed was so that they could fight for the government, to be, in effect, permanent potential conscripts?"

1. In the German Weapons Act of 1938, the Nazis expanded, liberalized, and deregulated guns for over 99% of the German population. Hitler wanted "an armed Aryan nation" because he ruled not with force but with propaganda. The US has 1/3 to 1/2 of all private guns in the world and it has put up with abusive government for two centuries.

"Well-regulated" is defined in Article 1, 'Section 8 of the Constitution: Congress shall have the power to call forth, arm, and control the militia for 3 specific purposes: 1) to enforce the law 2) to put down foreign invasions and 3) to put down insurrections.

These are specifically spelled out and there are no other purposes for the militia, and the 2nd Amendment only confirms that the militia is well-regulated (as defined) and the reason for the prohibition against infringing on the right to keep and bear arms.

In other words, the 2nd Amendment makes it clear that it is a duty (to be called forth: conscription; involuntary servitude) disguised as a right.Add to this that since the 2nd Amendment is based on the need for a militia Congress can call forth and command to put down rebellions, etc, in the absence of a standing Army, which the Founding Fathers feared (having just defeated a standing army), the Amendment became obsolete over two hundred years ago when a standing army was established to perform the duties described in Article 1, Section 8.

Nowhere in the Constitution is there any mention, or even a hint, that the militia was empowered to challenge the new central government that the
Constitution created to replace the weak and failed government under the Articles of Confederation.

So we have been had, folks. We live in a nation which has more guns than all other 34 advanced nations combined but has never challenged eras of oppression and tyranny even once. Why? Because like Nazi Germany, which expanded gun rights, we are ruled by propaganda and myths which has kept us loyal to a government that has lied to us, stolen from us, and taken us into bloody wars for no other reason than profit for the banks, which fund wars, the oil oligarchs who supply the fuel, the weapons makers, who get lucrative state contracts to make the instruments of death and destruction, and the political pawns who serve the Wall ST/Big Oil/ MIC to authorize or promote the racket of wars.

Meanwhile, since 9/11, the US has had over 500,000 gun deaths, more deaths than in combat during the bloodiest war in world history (WWII).....because of the fact that the gun makers and their shills (the NR
A and their shills, the Republicans (and a handful of
conservative Democrats have not allowed common sense laws, such as universal background checks, which are supported by 97% of gun owners (Quinnipiac poll, which is A rated for accuracy at 538) to even be voted on, as they are holed up in committee, aborted.

These are facts, and whether you believe them or not, they are based on peer-reviewed studies, official data of the FBI and CDC and of the reporting agencies of foreign nations. I know the gun fetishists will deny these facts...and thus become complicit in the continuing mass carnage, which has no parallel in any other advanced nation.

2016:US had 15,500 gun homicidesUK had 17Japan had 1.

No amount of spin or bullshit can argue with such overwhelming facts. But gun zealots are an irrational lot...so I expect a lot of bullshit, which I will ignore.

To Mogg Tsur
Thanks for the welcome and intro to the site. I had written the initial article about the Ninth Circuit clown show on another site under the moniker Tanstaafl, and Autumn Cote asked if he could use it here, so I thought I would check it out.

I have already seen a few examples of the dearth of reasoning you mentioned, but I have also seen a lot more well-thought-out and very well-written stuff, too. I am sure that the chronic flamers here are no better at crafting insults than their counterparts on other sites, so I think that I will be able to bear their slings and arrows fairly well. Mainly, I wonder how anyone can reach their mid 20s and still have such a lack of self awareness that they aren't embarrassed by their lack of self control and inability to come up with an actual argument.

Amazing...you managed to write your entire screed condemning gun ownership without making a single accurate statement about the Framers' intent regarding the Second Amendment.

I'm not sure why Congress's authority to "1) to enforce the law 2) to put down foreign invasions and 3) to put down insurrections" is some kind of limitation on its ability to use force in any way it chooses. Those three things pretty much cover the spectrum, don't you think, especially since the entity with the power to order the use of deadly force is the same one that gets to decide if one or more of the conditions precedent have been met.

It seems to have escaped your notice that the Article I grant of congressional authority included the power to "arm" the militia. Now, why do you suppose that the Second Amendment explicitly protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms if Congress was going to arm them?

Look, you don't like guns or the people who want to own them. Fine. Your prerogative. You think that the Second Amendment is obsolete and has been so for 200 years. If though that opinion is incredibly silly for multiple reasons, you're free to think that.

But you simply don't know what you're talking about when it comes to 2-A, and you clearly have no idea and don't care about the various reasons for the Framers including it in the Bill of Rights, since it's "obsolete" anyway. So on those points we're at an impasse and will have to agree to disagree.

But you are certainly free to organize and spearhead a grassroots movement aimed at repealing the amendment, so if you are as offended by gun ownership as you seem to be, that is your option. Or, like every other leftist totalitarian wannabe, you can try to get the courts to give you a victory when you figure out that the majority of citizens will tell you to go pound sand.

This misstatement of fact is an all-too-common misapprehension these days.

The Constitution "grants" or gives nothing. It is a document of NEGATIVE authority, defining - and more importantly, LIMITING - the powers general gov't actors can lawfully exercise.

The Founders were VERY clear that our Rights originate with our Creator, which is the very thing which makes them unalienable. No man, no magistrate, no group of lawmakers, and ESPECIALLY, no piece of paper gives us our Rights. Never have; never will.

The French have a saying: "Constitutions are made of paper; bayonets are made of steel."

I agree, Ward.
The Founders were VERY clear that the Constitution and Amendments(first 10, along with the Preamble to them) were written specifically to balance out powers, figuring that jealously over their respective fields would prevent(or at least, slow down) all attempts to arrogate powers not delegated.

What should have happened - and still can, imo - is that the next time anyone in ANY court makes a ruling which has the effect of changing the Constitution, to IMMEDIATELY ARREST every justice voting in favor, and try them on felony perjury charges iaw the Oaths of Office they're required to take as a condition of their employment as Public Servants.

Even if the judges so charged beat the rap, they'll be put on notice that the People are being vigilant, and won't put up with bullshit...nor those who engage in the pretense that they are our masters.

This misstatement of fact is an all-too-common misapprehension these days.

The Constitution "grants" or gives nothing"

1. I did NOT say "The 2nd Amendment grants the right...." you made that up, a lie and a strawman fallacy so you could lecture me about a statement I did NOT MAKE.. You are committing the gross dishonesty of putting words in my mouth so you can attack them.

Here is what I actually wrote: ".....the 2nd Amendment only confirms that the militia is well-regulated (as defined) and (presents) the reason for the prohibition against infringing on the right to keep and bear arms. "

And starting with a lie, you totally ignore the textual analysis of the purpose of the militia, the meaning of well-regulated, and the fact that the original reason for the 2nd Amendment disappeared over 200 years ago.

Clearly, you have been brainwashed to the point that when someone presents a logical case, you misquote it in order to attack it. Sad.

For judges invent laws, the prize goes to the "strict constructionists" who have ruled that corporations (legal constructs chartered by the states) are people with the rights of individualmoney is free speech (meaning the wealthy have the most free speech and the poor have none)The 2nd Amendment grants the right to hunt and individual protection

Please to explain how you did NOT write the words i quoted. Then explain how the Constitution is NOT a document which circumscribes the powers (LAWFUL, i.e. Constitutional powers) which these PUBLIC SERVANTS can take.

Then, explain this ruling:

"[The Right to Keep and Bear Arms] is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed;... This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government,…". U.S. v. Cruikshank Et Al. 92 U.S. 542 (1875).

Everyone makes mistakes; it is my sincere hope that he acknowledges his, or points out how i didn't understand him properly and corrects my lack of comprehension; mistakes only become irreversible errors when they are denied, imo, as this is dishonesty and dishonor.

I think, judging solely by his comments, that facts and dare I presume ... perhaps even reality are beyond his grasp. We will see what we will see ... one good thing about being cynical, I enjoy being incorrect.

Legislating from the bench is just as common these days as fiat legislation ala government "regulatory bodies" that are not elected or at all accountable to the people but make "regulations" under the "full force and effect of law".

Judges, being sworn public servants, are required to obey the dictates of the Constitution as it is, not as it's been "interpreted." If one dares peruse Article 3, anyone honest would soon notice that among the powers delegated to the Judicial branch, "interpret" is NOT included. The Founders were well aware of this tendency, to stretch and misinterpret all law, so they put a preamble to the Bill of Rights which stated, in relevant part: "In order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of it's powers..."
Misconstruction in this instance means to "misconstrue," as in "deliberately pretend that something which has clear and specific meaning can be twisted into meaning anything judges want."
Now, if one combines the 2 previous points with the 9th and 10th Amendments, it becomes clear to even the dullest intellect that the powers granted were few and defined, just like Madison wrote...and James is credited by history as being the "Father of the Constitution," so it seems self-evident he'd know wtf he's writing about.
But SCOTUS has arrogated to itself powers that are nowhere in the Constitution, ergo also self-evidently Unconstitutional. First, the aforementioned idea that they were delegated the power to "interpret" anything; second, the pernicious doctrine of "implied powers," which the Constitution SPECIFICALLY DENIES, as pointed out by the 4 instances previously alluded to; third, the oft-cited "Public Policy" exception(which is also nowhere evident in the document to which they swear fealty, either) and last, "precedent." It appears clear to me that this point, as well, is NOT IN THE CONSTITUTION, ergo citing it as a reason to rule this way or that, especially in variance to the doc they swore obedience to, is "arrogation of powers not delegated," aka "Usurpation," a High Crime which should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law the FIRST time it occurred.

Finally, if one accepts the premise that the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land(and Article 6 states this unequivocally), and if one knows further, that every and all forms of governance known to have ever existed on this planet werre investigated by the Founders, and further, that they'd ALL read Plato's "The Republic," therefore were painfully and fully aware of the multiple fatal flaws of democracy, then it becomes clear why the word IS NOT IN THE CONSTITUTION AT ALL. Period.

Ergo, conclusive proof that America is NOT a democracy, it never was, and it never will be, not to anyone who's remotely familiar with the creation of that document which is the Supreme Law.

However, if doubt still exists, i have several citations from those who wrote and/or ratified the Supreme Law which address this very point; the Founders were VERY clear that democracy was a pernicious and destructive form of governance, and that what they intended we receive and propagate was a Constitutional Republic. If challenged on this point, i'll post them all. Every one of them. Might even toss in some more from various other quite intelligent men and women down through the ages, from Aristotle to various authors in the 50's and 60's, like this one:

"Did I say "republic?" By God, yes, I said "republic!" Long live the glorious republic of the United States of America. Damn democracy. It is a fraudulent term used, often by ignorant persons but no less often by intellectual fakers, to describe an infamous mixture of socialism, graft, confiscation of property and denial of personal rights to individuals whose virtuous principles make them offensive."
-- Westbrook Pegler(1894-1969) American journalist, writer
Source: New York Journal American of January 25th and 26th, 1951, under the titles "Upholds Republic of U.S. Against Phony Democracy" and "Democracy in the U.S. Branded Meaningless."

Mogg, I would check out E Michael Jones or Michael Hoffman and learn something about Talmudic Judaism. There are many highly expert credible sources, anyone I quote has a PhD, and career sucess and credibility. Check out Benjamine Freedman, or Henry Makow who is an english PhD and runs as website. Despite ADL efforts and censorship, good information is still widely available. You could search "Gulag Archipeligo" on youtube, about the Russian Revolution and communism in early 1900's..

Doug-
Looks like a certain poster does not like to be refuted, and as a result, deleted his own posts - perhaps to pretend he never expressed an opinion here. Losers do that, you know.

Ward-
You may recall this citation of Sam Clemens(although he apparently got it from Benjamin Disraeli): "There are lies, DAMNED lies, and statistics."

Who knows how these "gun deaths" were calculated? Did they include suicides? Deaths from gun injuries suffered weeks prior? Police shootings? Are they attributable to NRA members? Kids strung out on serotonin reuptake inhibitors? The mentally ill? Gang-related deaths? Deaths resulting from successful defense of life, liberty, and property from thugs who meant to take the same?

The bottom line is this: socialists know that there's NFW that they can impose their tyranny upon armed Americans, not without major loss of life, mostly on the side of the tyrants, but either way, it'd be a war of attrition, and even if the socialists "win," their victory is likely to be Pyrrhic, at best.

Based on what i've heard lately, their(the "PtB") latest tack is to now spray sulfur dioxide from their fleet of planes. Mike Adams, the "Health Ranger," will broadcast a show Sunday night where he goes into detail and provides proofs, on a show called "Counterthink." You may not be able to find it on most of MSM and leftist-dominated media, as they despise the Truth, but if you visit bitchute.com, you shouldn't have much trouble finding it, there...but probably not 'til Monday. Allegedly, sulfur dioxide is the prime culprit in smog, and it has the effect of leeching O2 from the atmosphere while simultaneously making it difficult for trees and plants to grow, which cuts down on the re-supply of O2 from natural sources.

Good comment re Civil War deaths, Ward, but it's important to remember that of the 600,000 deaths, about 400,000 were from disease or infection. Of course lots of the infections started because of combat injuries, especially amputations; anyway, you're right that ignoring the hundreds of thousands of Civil War deaths badly skews the figures.

It seemed relevant given his (mis)observation of "facts" ... though apparently his idea of "reason" and "evidence" is not much better given this little jewel ...

"I do not hear two sides shouting at each other: I hear one side presenting reason, another presenting bullshit. What is the difference: a civil tone and evidence. I no longer look in at the comments on my several articles since they are the same idiots ejaculating on the page. "

There's a strong case to breaking up the Ninth Circuit to create a new, Western Circuit court stocked with sane people. Lessens the load to the Ninth Circuit and creates more conservative judges catering to a conservative West/Midwestern area.

A bunch of nutty judges is a big problem, but the problem we have in Canada is that agents of the Crown normally operate as if they are themselves the law, or that the law doesn't apply to them. Your Federal agents are the same basic thing as our Crown agents. You in the great USA have the Fed and Washington DC. We, in Canada, have the Crown.

Jeffry, the issue I had was in regards to bringing a copy of the Constitution in to the courts with me and mentioning issues of jurisdiction and lawful nature.

They arrested me, held me without bail for forty-eight hours, took twenty-four hours to process me out, and then billed me forty-eight hundred US dollars per venture ... SIX TIMES ... though only one showed up on my NCIC last time I had a check run.

The only lawyer I could find to touch it was Mills Lane, though he wanted fifteen grand up front ... and since I had not been convicted ... or even charged with anything, there was no opportunity to pay off the "fines" with community service ... but failing to pay was a criminal offense ... a crime against the State ... thus they had a good payment plan ... pay us or go to jail ... and paying off over twenty-five grand in fines, left me in no position to pay Mills Lane a retainer.

Dale Ruff said, "Hitler . . . ruled not with force but with propaganda."
Dale, I am sorry, but that has got be one of the silliest claims that I've seen from you, and that is saying a lot!
From the early 1920s to the death of the Third Reich, Hitler was all about the use of force and terror to enforce his lunatic rule. True, he also made heavy use of propaganda, largely because Goebbels convinced him that a combination of genuine loyalty and fear would give him a firmer hold over more people. Try seduction before resorting to rape, in other words. It worked, for a time - the Germans knew that the iron fist could slip easily out of the velvet glove. But even before he became Chancellor, he had opponents murdered; he opened Buchenwald, to confine and brutalize mostly Germans whose loyalties were suspect; and the screams of his victims echoed in the subterranean torture chambers under Gestapo Headquarters on Prinze Albrect Strasse by the end of 1933.

Hitler had a group of people (the internationalists lets just call them) within Germany that had declared war on Germany and created an international boycott of German goods, threatening to starve Germany out of existence. An enemy within is far more dangerous than that without.

Re "Doug,
I am unfamiliar with any subversive group in Germany with that agenda. I'd like to read up on it, though, if you will share your source. Thanks in advance."

Its common knowledge that there was an international boycott on German goods. I knew that when I was twelve. You would probably find it here . This knowledge was widely known when i was a teenager in the seventies. Irving is uncool by establishment standards now, for questioning the holocaust, but was a top selling historian before Deborah Lipstad and her emotional outburst.

Doug Plumb:
Since it was clear from the outset that there was a 99 percent probability that by "internationalists" you mean "Jews," it was a near-certainty that your proof would consist of quoting the usual crackpots that "it-was-all-the-fault-of-the-wicked-Jews-and-anyway-there-was-no-Holocaust-or-if-there-was-the-Jews-and-the-Swiss-did-together-to-make-the-Nazis-look-bad-and-they-are-always-picking-on-them.” Yep, and you've known since you were 12 that good ol' crazypants Adolph the carpet-chewer was really the good guy and just another innocent victim of evil "international Jewry."

ChetDude:
The generally accepted practice when enclosing someone's statements with quotation is to restate what they actually said. Still, I understand how thrilling it is for a “developmentally delayed" leftist to launch an ad hominem attack against a victim who can't fight back (the left's favorite kind of target), topped off with infantile name calling-especially when Lefty Mouthbreather is triggered by the micro aggression of someone twice as smart as he is, who smells three times better, despite being dead for almost two years.
Or maybe you were only kidding, and you are not stupid enough to equate Scalia's occasional testy sarcasm with Hitler's premeditated murder of six million helpless, unarmed people.

re "Yep, and you've known since you were 12 that good ol' crazypants Adolph the carpet-chewer was really the good guy and just another innocent victim of evil "international Jewry."

No, just that there is another side to the story and for anyone that is even mildly curious about the truth is probably getting sick of this "poor innocent Jews, who have been persecuted throughout history for no known reason except that they are superiour to everyone else" bullshit. You have to be silly and simple minded to believe that kind of bullshit.

Doug Plumb:
Nice try...except that anyone can read what you wrote and see exactly what you meant. You weren't arguing that there was "another side" to anything. And in this case, by the way, there is not another side that can lay claim to even an atom's worth of legitimacy. The amount of evidence that you have to ignore to deny the Holocaust is mountainous - tons of it that is so compelling or conclusive that one has to seriously wonder about the intelligence, sanity, and likelihood that their motivation for such a bizarre belief system is that they simply hate Jews. Such hatred was enough to launch the Final Solution, after all; no reason that it should not be enough for you, too.

I don't think that I want to waste any more time arguing with a fool who believes that the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves because a shadowy group of "internationalist" Jews in Germany tried to destroy the German nation with a boycott of German cuckoo clocks and lederhosen.

You remind me of the Thomas Jefferson quote that "A fanatic is a man who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

I do not think the Jews brought on the holocaust themselves, I do not believe the holocaust happened. I believe the population records and the Red Cross tell the truth. I also believe that you are a schlamiel.

Completely without any reasonable precedent and were expansions of the original arguments that allowed the execrable Five to invent "laws" that could never get passed through Congress...in fact were COUNTER to that passed by Congress and signed by Presidents in the past...

Doug Plumb: If you believe the holocaust happened, then explain why you think Hitler did it.....****
Doug, the only reasons for me to try and explain anything to you would be (1) There was some miniscule chance of convincing you of the truth; (2) you were important enough that I cared what you believe. There isn't, you're not and I don't.
Even if you were somehow convinced, you would just glom onto some other weird, nutbag conspiracy theory and would begin hounding people about it, so why bother?

David L, I appreciate and agree with your forum's message and opinion, even if you were incorrect when you said the 9th court holds the record when it comes to being overturned. Pointing out that might be cute and technically correct, but has nothing to do with the subject your forum is all about.

I can't stand legislating from the bench especially when they deal with Constitutional issues and play a game of telephone by reinterpreting other judicial decisions instead of working up an argument solely based on what is actually in the Constitution.

If they want to change the Constitution there is an amendment process just for that purpose, and that's what they should be using. If their idea does not have enough support to get that done, that means it doesn't deserve to become the law of our land.

Riley-
i agree with you, but would go further. i say that any judge who makes a ruling which effectively changes the Constitution at ALL, either adding to it or taking from it, such a judge(or judges) should immediately be arrested and charged with felony perjury for violating their oaths of office and arrogating powers to themselves which the Constitution does not delegate to them...i'd also be ok with doing so posthumously, as rulings which have no Constitutional basis for existence need to be overturned - as well as various Amendments(14th and 16th, for starters) which were never properly ratified by the Constitutionally-requisite number of States.

Only Congress, with the assent of the President, can make laws - and even the president can be overridden by the requisite number of Congressmen. Changing the Constitution is a slow, laborious process as it SHOULD be, and can only be done via 3/4's ratification by State legislatures, either at the initiation of an Amendment by Congress, or by the States themselves, which can override Congress, too.

The Constitution divided the powers governments can exercise on purpose, counting on the jealousy of each branch's representatives to keep the other 2 in check - but for some time, now, no one has attempted to restrain courts from taking powers they were not delegated.

For example, it has been common practice for some time for SCOTUS to "interpret" law, but Article 3 delegates no such power; they have also based much of their power-grab on "implied powers," a concept not entertained by the Constitution. Then there's "precedent," another basis for making decisions NOwhere authorized by the Constitution, as well as this last, "Public Policy."

i've not seen those exceptions carved out anywhere in the Constitution, ergo anyone taking liberties with the 'few and defined' powers should be brought up on charges in order to compel our Public Servants to "stay in their lane," so to speak.

Has it ever occurred to folks that the commercial fiction that is the United States is not now nor will it ever be a homogeneous "nation"?

Maybe that delusion is the real source of the problems.

SCOTUS is now so much further to the pro-corporate, right-wing fringe that 95% of USAmericans are no longer represented by its rulings, Congress is about the same and the WH has a maniacal sociopath "in charge".

I happen to believe that most USAmericans are decent folk, not nasty bullies like that big orange turd nor corporate hirelings like Congress and SCROTUS.

I've lived in the Deep South during Jim Crow (f*ckin insane racist), the northeast (Boston) when it was deeply racist, the west (including bat-sh*t crazy right-wing Arizona) and the way west - now in the 2nd bluest state in the "union".

I chose to move my family and myself to this bluest state because now that we're at the end of the age of cheap fossil-fuels and the brand of vulture capitalism they powered and as that commercial fiction disguised as a dying Empire continues to disintegrate into soon-to-be warring pockets of regressive, heavily armed loonists fighting each other over increasingly smaller pockets of clean water and climate that can grow food (on the mainland), I'd rather be here...where the rains still fall, the soil is fertile (not poisoned by Big Ag nearly as much) and the people are basically and generally courteous and kind.

re "Doug Plumb: If you believe the holocaust happened, then explain why you think Hitler did it.....****
Doug, the only reasons for me to try and explain anything to you would be (1) There was some miniscule chance of convincing you of the truth; (2) you were important enough that I cared what you believe. There isn't, you're not and I don't.
Even if you were somehow convinced, you would just glom onto some other weird, nutbag conspiracy theory and would begin hounding people about it, so why bother? "

It would have been easier for you just to show some evidence, unless you don't have any.

Doug, the documented roundups of Jews and other subversive peoples, along with all the mass graves is pretty good evidence to me.

Do you think they just made that stuff up and all the mass graves documentary movie footage taken by the Nazi's are just Hollywood creations? Do you think the German people who even today are embarrassed by that part of their history don't really know what happened? Personally I don't consider them responsible for what their parents, or grand parents did, its' history and not something they are proud of so I doubt they would do something like that now even if they could.

There are also entire towns that were obviously Jewish, complete with temples that are still standing, but empty, where do you think all the people are? Millions of them fled and millions were deported to extermination camps and died. I've met many who were in the camps when they were liberated, and survived. Do you think they are all liars?

I find people like you interesting, on one hand they deny the Holocaust, but on the other hand I get the very distinct feeling they would gladly approve a similar solution today, and even do what they can to help because they hate the Jews as much as Hitler did.

There were many holocausts in many lands such as: Jerico, Indian terrorist, the Japanese in Korea, Russians in Russia [dekulakization--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization] and Poland, Armenians by Turks in parts of Turkey and The Mayans in the Americas.